The Houston Pride parade is one of the biggest in the South. About 150,000 people show up to watch the parade. I have not missed but one Houston parade in the last 10 years. I usually buy tickets to stand on the roof of a bar, so I don't have to mill about the crowds. I'm glad I did that this year, because the crowds seemed worse than usual. There were two factors that influenced the bigger crowds: The Westheimer Street Festival folks decided to plan their street fair on the same weekend as the Parade, and the Supreme Court's sodomy decision had many gay people ready to celebrate.

The Street Fair is not usually something I would seek out. It's hot, it's loud, and really, how many different kinds of incense and "smoking accessories" can you sell? Yeah, it's THAT kind of street festival. Once you've seen one unwashed, tattoo wearing freak look at a hookah pipe in awe, you've pretty much seen them all.

So the street fair was kinda lame, but as dark approached, the crowd grew gayer and more festive (which might be redundant) and the crowd began to build.

Lots of folks, when you mention a gay pride parade, you think of drag queens in convertables and dick dancers on bar floats. There is definately lots of that, but there's a lot more. There's the gay veterans group. There's various churches. Lots of gay advocacy groups. The gay chorus...

But there are still the drag queens. The most entertaining entry for me this year was the Strangerettes, a drag drill team from Dallas. Remember the drill team from your high school that did the high kick routines? Yeah, imagine 75 men in drag doing that. It was wonderful.

My favorite entry this year, though, was the Audi convertable toting John Lawrence and Tyrone Garner, the defendants who just prevailed in the Supreme Court decision. They were there near the beginning of the parade, and the roar of the crowd for those guys was the best, loudest cheer I've ever heard from a crowd. So meaningful. That's the real reason we hold parades: not to have a good time and party, not to "make a statement" (though those are great side effects.) I think we throw parades so that we can prove to ourselves that we are not alone in this world.

Another entry that gets me in every gay pride parade I've ever been too (and it's many, many parades over the years) are the P-FLAG marchers. The friends and family of gay people marching, including little old ladies with white hair waving signs like "I love my gay son" just really can make me cry. You know... when my meds aren't well adjusted.

Also entertaining this year (as in years past) is the LOAF group. LOAF stands for Lesbians Over Age Fifty, and they march down the street saying "HO HO, HEY HEY, How do you know your Grandma's straight?!" That's just so wrong it's right, folks.

Wow... Tim, so glad for you ...very nice. Great seeing your take on the day . Sounds like you had a blast.And yeah...you know, seeing the Parents of PFlag and also Gay Parents really makes me feel good also.

"How do you know your grandma's straight?" - that is the funniest fucking thing I've ever heard. I love it.